During this early look at the expansion, I see how Shattered Space sets its stall out early. The tone goes further with horror tropes than Starfield has done before. But it’s doing more than offering a simple genre swerve – it’s all setting up a multi-hour mystery that will take you into the long-lost heart of Va’Ruun culture, and asking you to help solve a horrifying problem.

As Bethesda Game Studios puts it, Starfield is fundamentally about humanity’s quest for knowledge, but Shattered Space adds a question into the mix – what happens when that quest goes too far? The people of House Va’Ruun – a secluded sect that believe in a god known as The Great Serpent – have tragically experimented with grav drive technology, to deeply unpleasant results. When your exploration of The Oracle inadvertently leads you to their secret homeworld, Va’Ruun’kai, you’re entering a disaster only just taking shape.

Two weeks before your arrival, that experiment went wrong, devastating the Va’Ruun’kai capital, Dazra and beyond. It’s cut off portions of the world inside gravitational distortions known as Vortexes, the Va’Ruun leader has vanished (leaving factions of Va’Ruun society vying for power), and extra-dimensional monsters have begun spilling into our reality. Amid all this, you’ll need to become initiated into Va’Ruun culture, and help negotiate both political and violent struggles.

The key to Shattered Space is that the entire expansion takes place on Va’Ruun’kai (although you can leave and return at almost any time). Major sections of the planet are entirely handcrafted. It looks and feels like a classic Bethesda Game Studios experience, similar to prior expansions for The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series – a self-contained story that plays with tone and mechanics that the main game didn’t.

Bethesda Game Studios have created something new with Va’Ruun’kai – this world doesn’t look or act like any other in the game. It’s a deeply alien landscape, the architecture is unique, and Vortexes even change how you explore, allowing you to effectively platform to out of the way structures in pockets of zero-G. Even if you’ve explored the length and breadth of Starfield’s galaxy, there’s something new here for you.

The sheer scope here is clear across the board. There are cosmic ghost stories, monster attacks from new species, and even what look like fully-fledged survival horror sequences with stalking abominations. Of course, you’ll be finding new weapons and equipment along the way to help you combat these new threats, too – I’m particularly interested in the Vortex Grenade, which appears to harness the power of the devastation in a spectacular way.

The story will fill purposeful gaps in the lore about how and why Va’Ruun society cut itself off from the rest of the Settled Systems, go some way to explain why Va’Ruun Zealots have become a hostile force, and we’re even teased with the idea that our decisions in this story can affect the wider galaxy once we’re done.

Even with just a glimpse of Shattered Space under my belt, it’s clear that this is far more than a slotted-in side-story – it’s another thread being woven into Starfield’s rich tapestry. Mysteries and horrors await on Va’Ruun’kai, and it won’t be long until we get to experience them.

Starfield: Shattered Space launches for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Steam on September 30.